Bazmatron / Group Listening, Sy: gigs, Unitarian Church, Shrewsbury, 28/06/2024.

Bazmatron (Barry Edwards) – electric guitar, effects, wooden flute

Group Listening;
Stephen Black – clarinet, tenor sax, wind synth, electronics, Paul Jones – keyboards, electronics, tenor sax

The latest event in Sy: gigs’ “Letting The Light In” series featured a short improvised solo set from guitarist and flautist Barry Edwards (aka Bazmatron) followed by a lengthier, more formal, through composed performance from the Cardiff based duo Group Listening.

Now in its second season “Letting The Light In” stages its events at two Shrewsbury churches, the 100 seat Unitarian Church and the larger St. Alkmund’s Church, which can accommodate 240. Both venues are well appointed and their excellent acoustics are well suited to the varying musical styles presented by Sy. gigs.

Chris Taylor, the promoter and organiser of Sy: Gigs is keen to stress the importance of music to mental health and general well being. This, together with a love of nature, is at the heart of the Sy: Gigs ethos as Taylor continues to successfully build a community of adventurous music listeners in Shrewsbury.

The “Letting The Light In” series embraces various strands of music with jazz just one of the elements in an eclectic range of events that also incorporates folk, ambient, electronica, contemporary classical and avant pop / rock. A number of events are double bills so a single evening of music may encompass several of these. It’s a series of events that is likely to appeal to listeners of such BBC Radio 3 programmes as Late Junction, Unclassified and Night Tracks.

BAZMATRON

Bazmatron is the alter-ego of guitarist, composer and improviser Barry Edwards, a musician who studied jazz at Birmingham Conservatoire.

Edwards has since followed a career that has seen him combining the roles of musician and promoter. Prior to the pandemic he and his partner Claudia Lis had curated a series of wide ranging events at the Hermon Chapel in Oswestry, Shropshire, with a number of top quality live albums being recorded at the venue during this period. These include “Live” by Magpie Trio, a group led by drummer Sam Jesson, and “Locked” by an improvising quartet featuring Edwards in the company of saxophonist Bruce Coates, bassist Trevor Lines and drummer Ed Gauden.

Edwards and Lis are currently running Hafan Yr Afon, a cafe and community and visitor centre in Newtown, Mid Wales. They have already begun to present musical events,  including a recent performance by Silent Form Quartet, an Anglo-Norwegian ensemble led by the Birmingham based saxophonist Mike Fletcher. It is to be hoped that similar events will be able to take place in the future.

Edwards’ interest in free improvisation has also seen him working with Gauden and saxophonist Mark Hanslip as part of the trio  UNschooLED, releasing the album “Hymns For Robots” on George Haslam’s SLAM label in 2016.

Other musicians with whom Edwards has worked include saxophonists Alicia Gardener-Trejo, Martin Dunsdon and Lyndon Owen, violinist Sarah Farmer, trombonist Dave Sear, bassist Colin Summervell and drummers Jim Bashford and Tymek Joswiak.

Edwards’ work as a manager at Hafan Yr Afon has entailed that there has been less time for him to focus on his musical career, but he has continued to perform as a solo artist under the Bazmatron banner as well as still collaborating with other musicians.

His solo guitar performances incorporate the extensive use of electronics, which Edwards dubs ‘Bazmatronics’, presumably as a homage to King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp and his ‘Frippertronics’.

Fripp is an acknowledged influence for Edwards in his role as a solo guitarist. Other sources of inspiration include Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Sonny Sharrock and Mary Halvorson. Indeed I remember meeting up with Barry and Claudia at a gig at the MAC in Birmingham in January 2020 when Halvorson was playing as part of a trio led by drummer Tom Rainey and featuring saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock. My review of that show by the Tom Rainey Trio can be found elsewhere on this site.

A particularly important figure for Edwards was the late, great guitarist and improviser John Russell (1954-2021), with whom Edwards studied.

Tonight’s set was a short, twenty minute improvisation featuring the sounds of electric guitar, ‘Bazmatronics, and wooden flute. The latter had been found by one of Edwards’ friends who had found it while carrying out a house clearance and subsequently gifted it to Barry. The origin of the instrument remains unknown, although Edwards suspects that it might be Aboriginal. In any event he loved the warmth of its tone and decided to incorporate the instrument into his performances,  it’s sound representing a nice acoustic contrast to the electrically generated timbres of the guitar and its associated effects.

Introducing his performance Edwards explained that it would be entirely improvised, “it keeps me on my toes”, and that he would be attempting to “turn chaos into order”, a neat definition of this art of ‘instantaneous composition’.

The opening passages were played on guitar only and included the use of live looping techniques as Edwards skilfully layered his sound,  making effective use of overtones and also deploying the instrument’s tremolo arm to enrich his sound.

The use of extended guitar techniques included the use of string scratching and scraping and hammering on, but Edwards’ jazz heritage was not forgotten as he also included a smattering of bebop inspired chords and phrases.

Elsewhere Edwards generated ambient soundscapes sculpted via the deployment of foot pedals and his floor mounted ‘Bazmatronics’ effects unit. Looped and layered these provided the diaphanous sonic backdrop for Edward’s soft and breathy playing of the wooden flute, which also included gentle Roland Kirk style vocalisations. The combination of guitar and flute sometimes reminded me of the cult band Jade Warrior.

As the sonic backdrop reduced in volume to an almost subliminal drone Edwards played a flute solo of sorts before returning to the guitar and adding an ethereal wordless vocal as the twenty minute improvisation drew to a close.

I was highly impressed by my first experience of Edwards as a solo artist. This ‘spontaneous composition’ incorporated a strong narrative arc and saw Edwards making skilled and astute use of the instrumental, technological, and even vocal,  resources available to him. There was a genuine feeling of having been taken on a musical journey with Edwards genuinely succeeding in his aim of creating “order from chaos”.

In their roles as promoters I have known Barry and Claudia for a number of years and consider them to be personal friends, but this was the first that time I’d actually seen Barry performing. It was good to see him play so successfully in front of a full house, earning an excellent reception from a supportive and discerning audience. The success was all the more remarkable as he had been unwell in the days leading up to the concert and at one point it had been very much ‘touch and go’ as to whether he would be able to perform at all. I’m glad that he was able to make it, this was a short but thoroughly absorbing and enjoyable set and the perfect curtain raiser for Group Listening. Well done Baz!

GROUP LISTENING

Group Listening is the Cardiff based duo of clarinettist Stephen Black and pianist Paul Jones, both of whom also play additional instruments.

Their influences include classical chamber music plus more contemporary artists such as Brian Eno, Arthur Russell, Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Robert Wyatt, and also minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass.

The duo have been together for a decade and have released three full length albums “Clarinet & Piano: Selected Works Vol. 1” (2018),  “Clarinet and Piano: Selected Works Vol. 2” (2022) and most recently “Walks” (May, 2024). Both of the “Clarinet and Piano” works have been the subject of subsequent remix albums.

In addition to the album recordings Group Listening have also released the EPs “What’s A Girl To Do” (2019), “Y Cwsg” (2022) and the stand alone track “Porcelain” (2022).

Blending elements of chamber music, minimalism, folk, avant rock and electronica Group Listening have attracted something of an international cult following and have been touring extensively in support of “Walks”, an album featuring nine pieces of new original material.

Multi-instrumentalist Black has a parallel solo career working under the name Sweet Baboo. As a singer and songwriter he works in the indie folk / pop field and has released eight albums under the Sweet Baboo moniker.

For most listeners Black, in his Sweet Baboo guise, is probably the best known member of the duo but I’m more familiar with the work of Paul Jones, a jazz pianist I’ve seen on multiple occasions over the years as member of (among others) the Jones / O’Connor Group, trombonist Gareth Roberts’ quintet and most recently bassist Aidan Thorne’s band Duski.

Jones is a highly accomplished jazz pianist and an inventive and imaginative piano soloist. He is also a skilled player of electric keyboards with an interest in vintage analogue synths, a side of his playing that he was able to explore both in the Jones / O’Connor group and later with Duski.

Jones’ interest in electric keyboards and synths also feeds into Group Listening with the duo placing a contemporary electronic slant on chamber music and minimalism. “Walks” features comparatively short pieces that place the emphasis on melody and atmosphere rather than improvisation. There are few solos in the accepted ‘jazz’ manner, although Jones does describe the duo’s music as being “jazz adjacent”. It’s certainly different to anything he’s done before, especially the relatively straight ahead jazz of the Gareth Roberts Quintet.

Tonight’s set began with “Shopping Building”, which saw both Black and Jones playing tenor saxophones, delivering simple but effective melodies above a backdrop of programmed beats triggered by Black. Beguiling and mellifluous this short piece was favourably received by the Shrewsbury audience.

Also from the new album came “New Brighton”, a track previously issued as a single. This saw Black switching to clarinet and Jones moving to his usual keyboards – I’d never witnessed him playing saxophone before. Again programmed beats, somewhat heavier this time, formed the rhythmic backdrop, the airy melodies floating ethereally above them.

Much of Group Listening’s music has a cinematic quality about it and one can imagine it being utilised for film and television soundtracks. This was the case with “Old Reeds”, which saw Black featuring on wind synth (or EWI, if you will), generating an eerie sound that combined effectively with Jones’ keyboards, with programmed beats again providing the rhythmic impetus.

Still staying with the album repertoire “Frogs” introduced the sound of field recordings with the sounds of the titular amphibians woven into the fabric of the music. Featuring Black on clarinet and Jones on keyboards this was a piece that I found particularly reminiscent of Eno’s 1975 album “Another Green World” and also of the music of the recently departed Ryuichi Sakomoto (1952-2023).

Also from “Walks” the composition “Pavane IX” featured Black’s long clarinet melody lines above Jones’ synth drones and the steady pulse of pre-programmed electronic beats in an updating of the sound of early Kraftwerk.

Similarly “Hills End” from the same album featured another insistent electronic beat, arpeggiated keyboard drones and squiggles and the sight of Black moving between clarinet and wind synth.

“Welcome to Denge”, the final track on the new album was written on location in Dungeness and were inspired by the three sound mirrors to be found in the area.
These have been defined as;
“A forerunner of radar, acoustic mirrors were built on the south and north-east coasts of England between about 1916 and the 1930s. The ‘listening ears’ were intended to provide early warning of incoming enemy aircraft” (source; https://www.andrewgrantham.co.uk/soundmirrors/locations/denge/)
I have been to Dungeness myself and although I didn’t see the sound mirrors I can confirm that it is a truly other worldly place. “Welcome to Denge” is the lengthiest track on the album and the performance of this piece was one of the duo’s most evocative. With the electronic beats turned off it was easier to appreciate the subtleties and nuances of the playing with wind synth and keyboards providing the ethereal colours and textures. This was deeply evocative music that was warmly received by the supportive Shrewsbury audience.

From the first “Clarinet & Piano” album “Wenn Der Sudwind Weht” featured a rhythmic backdrop that variously reminded me of gamelan music and of the sound of African thumb pianos. This formed the charming backdrop to Black’s airy clarinet melodies and Jones’ keyboard texturing.

“Seeland” was sourced from the second “Clarinet & Piano” record and featured a sparse rhythmic backdrop allied to a gentle, folk like melody played by Black on clarinet. This was the only piece to feature anything resembling a ‘solo’ with Jones taking something of an excursion at the keyboard as Black moved to wind synth for the hypnotic final section.

Effectively the encore “Happy Whistler” was sourced from the first “Clarinet & Piano” recording and, as befits its title, was the most upbeat tune of the entire set. Featuring Black’s mellifluous clarinet melodies above a backdrop of arpeggiated piano and a simple electronically generated beat this was a piece that proved to be something of an audience favourite.

Group Listening proved to be very popular with the Shrewsbury crowd with many audience members taking the time to complement the duo after the show, with some also purchasing albums. The focus on melody,  allied to an emphasis on colour and texture, communicated itself well to the audience. This was direct, often beautiful, music with a strong visual quality that appealed to a wide range of listeners.

As a hardcore jazz listener I have to admit that I sometimes found it a little bland and missed the cut and thrust of jazz improvisation. Also I wasn’t overly keen on the preponderance of programmed beats. Jones is a genuine jazz musician and it would be interesting to see the Group Listening duo perform with a human drummer / percussionist, although I do appreciate the economic considerations of taking on an additional member. Also it wouldn’t be entirely conducive with the duo’s’ chamber music’ aesthetic, they have no pretensions about being a ‘jazz act’.

My thanks to Paul Jones, another friend I’ve known for a long time, for chatting with me and explaining something about the duo’s methods and also for providing me with a set-list that has proved invaluable in the writing of this review. I have to admit that I prefer to hear his playing in a more obvious jazz context but he is obviously enjoying his work with Group Listening, which seems to be his main focus at the moment, and the comparative commercial success that this has brought.

Thank you also the Chris Taylor of Sy; gigs for inviting me to cover this highly successful event.

For details of forthcoming Sy ; gigs events please visit;
https://www.facebook.com/people/Sygigs/100095324282062/

 

 

 

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